Flame Lost
by dhbPATHWAY1997
Summary: The scene from episode 21 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, in Lieutenant Hawkeye's perspective. How did she feel, thinking that the thing she "needed to protect" was gone? Review :  What can I say, I'm a shameless Hawkeye/Mustang fangirl!


"You're such a handful, 66," the woman drawled, hugging herself. "And I'm sad to see you here, Armor Boy. You just had to tag along. Talk about a setback," she pouted, and I clutched my gun a little tighter in my hands. "It's bad enough to lose one," she continued, "but now you're forcing me to kill a _second_ candidate!"

"Candidate?" Alphonse asked next to me, sounding worried. "A second one?"

"Yeah," the woman smiled. "You and Mr. Gallantry."

"That's enough of the casual chit-chat, Lust!" Barry interrupted, rushing forward and leaping into the air, his blade raised. "All I want to hear from you is screaming!"

He spun in the air and began to bring his blade down, but the woman suddenly seemed to extend her fingernails to razor-sharp points, at least four or five feet long, and she slashed them through Barry's body - or armor, for his lack of a body. Barry gasped as his shattered pieces fell to the floor and my narrowed eyes widened a little in sickened shock.

"I do hate over-confident men," the woman, or maybe more like _thing_, said drily, glaring down at Barry's pieces. "Now then, where were we?" She turned her head ever so slightly back towards Alphonse and I, and I raised my gun a little higher. Alphonse straightened up a little, too. "I think I was about to send the lieutenant to join her superior," she said easily, and the younger Elric brother stiffened.

As her words sunk in, began to make sense, I gasped, and my eyes widened further. Only one superior officer had accompanied me to the laboratory tonight... The one Barry had called Lust stepped forward, her heels clicking on the laboratory floor. My hands began to shake the closer she came, and adrenaline met full-out panic.

"Wait a minute," I said. "So when you said you'd already had to kill someone..." she kept coming closer with a slight smile on her dangerously beautiful face. "It can't be... _You didn't_!" I said louder, with more force to my voice.

She couldn't have...she didn't...not him...impossible...

She smiled wider, showing her teeth.

I lost it.

"YOU _BITCH_!" I yelled, pulling the trigger on my gun. Once, twice, three, four times, bullets penetrated her face, arms, shoulders, chest. I cried out in pure pain, wanting to gain just a little lead on this creature. If she had _really_ taken the one thing that truly mattered to me, more than anything else in the world...

I ran out of bullets in my gun and pulled another one from the holster around my back. Then I began shooting that gun out of bullets, as well, and Lust took every one of them, still standing. My cries sounded feral and frightening, even to my own ears, but I didn't care about that. I didn't care that there was someone else beside me, someone who didn't belong to the military. I didn't care that there could be someone outside the room, or that there were other soldiers here with us to take care of, or that I might be in way over my head with this opponent. I just kept firing and yelling, firing and yelling. The trigger under my finger was the one thing giving me the smallest bit of control over the life that was slipping away from me.

When my second gun ran out of ammunition, I reached for a third, and immediately fired, a bullet grazing her left shoulder to add to the plentiful bulletholes adorning her chest and arms. I could feel Alphonse watching me as I shot her in the throat, but I didn't care. He wasn't really there, not to me. I was here, and she was here, and no one else was. Just me and my revenge. Finally, Lust slumped over, and red energy crackled around her, but I didn't lower my gun. I didn't shoot, but I didn't lower my weapon, either. I couldn't. It gave me control. It gave me what little I had left.

Then Lust straightened up, much to my fury, and asked in that same, annoyingly dry voice, "Are you done?"

I clenched my jaw wider, baring my teeth that were closed so tightly together that my facial muscles hurt.

I realized that this anger wasn't what I needed. What good was fighting an opponent that I couldn't kill? A homunculus - to think that they actually existed! - couldn't be beat by even the most dedicated of soldiers, or the most penetrable of bullets. He was gone. _She_ had killed him, and I couldn't do anything about it. I had failed in my personal mission. I hadn't kept him safe.

Failure caused my shoulders to slump, and I lowered my gun then as I lowered my head to my shoulders, tears forming in my eyes. I looked up at her, so she could see my tears, and I could see his murderer perfectly. Red energy continued to encircle her, thin and powerful as lightning. I put my arms at my sides casually, unable to hold a tight pose anymore now that the anger and adrenaline was gone. Everything seemed to flow out of me like my tears, like my bullets had almost flowed out of my guns. Without my energy, I slumped to my knees on the floor, beginning to sob. My back bent forward, and I followed, letting myself collapse like every cell in my body was urging me to.

I heard Lust unsheathing her claws, but I paid no attention, not even when she spoke. "Such a sad and weak creature," she commented as I continuted to sob. "Another typical human."

I heard a clanking of metal and knew Alphonse was going to try to take action. But as much as the logical part of my brain was telling me that I should stop him, that I should command him to get behind me or run, my sobbing self stayed on the floor, bent over my knees, and lacking the ability to do much but cry.

It seemed impossible... \i Mustang\i0 ? \i Roy\i0 ? No. He didn't always seem it, perhaps, but he was full of life. He was as vibrant and energetic as the flames conjured by his glove and snapping fingers. He was forgetful and occasionally na\'efve, and I still had four extra gloves in my back pocket in case he ran into a dangerous nemesis such as a sprinkler system. But he wouldn't need them now. The Colonel was gone. The man I had admired, respected, worked with, attended to, assisted, and \i loved\i0 had been taken away. His life was nothing more than energy and heat released into the air. His body that I had once longed to hold grew cold somewhere off in the laboratory, covered in blood and knife-like wounds. All I wanted was to go and find that body and cling to it, because it truly was the last thing that mattered to me. He was _everything._

I was startled by Alphonse. "Stand up, Lieutenant. You need to get out of here."

"Do you want me to kill you first?" Lust asked, sounding almost amused.

Alphonse clapped his hands and I heard the sound of a transmutation. I could see the blue light given off by the reaction on the floor in front of me, though I didn't move at all, save for the body parts that needed to move for me to sob. I then heard Lust gasp.

"Oh my," she said, sounding a little less smug, if that was possible. "It looks like you've opened the Portal." She unsheathed her claws again and I heard Alphonse gasp this time as she cut something that sounded like metal. She struck again. "Such a shame," she observed, "you _are_ a perfect candidate." The sound of her claws being released came again, probably from her other hand.

I could see the claws headed straight towards me with my peripheral vision, and did nothing to try to stop them from hitting me. I would _welcome_ the stabbing, gory pain that would come with them. Pain was a release from the nothing I felt now. It wasn't apathy, no, my brain felt like it would explode from shock and grief, but my body itself was beginning to feel numb. Like I couldn't move, and I didn't want to, either. But just as the claws were a mere meter or so from me, and I continued to stare at the ground, Alphonse intercepted them with the _crunch_ of bending metal. I was slightly disappointed, although my natural survival instincts sighed in relief. But I didn't want to live.

"Listen, Alphonse," I choked, my voice wavering. "Leave me and save yourself." I meant it.

"No."

"Run!" I insisted, with tears pouring, not looking up.

"I won't!" he replied, and I sobbed again, teeth clenched and bared at the pain of...everything, honestly.

"Go!" I yelled. It was when he refused to leave and I registered to myself that he sounded childish, that I finally remembered: Alphonse Elric _was_ only a child. He was just a kid. He shouldn't be in this laboratory. He shouldn't be anywhere this close to the military. He shouldn't be in that armor. He should be at home in Risembool, with his family, being a kid. Being fourteen, figuring out your awkward, adolescent years in the comfort of his own home, of his own _body_. But however could I explain to such a child as this that there was nothing worth living for anymore to me? That everything was gone in the blink of an eye?

"I won't leave you!" he persisted. "I'm sick of watching people die!" Alphonse exclaimed, and I knew who he was talking about: Shou Tucker's daughter, General Hughes, and others, but I could only picture Roy. "And I can't just sit back and take it anymore! I won't get anyone else get killed!" I gasped at his last word, my eyes opening, and the pain coming to me again harder at that word. "Not when I can protect them!"

The sound came to my ears of Lust's claws tearing through metal, but Alphonse seemed determined, like she hadn't really hurt him, and he just wanted to get them out so he could fight. There were clanking noises behind me, however, and it sounded like a few pieces of his armor had been flung across the room.

Despite Alphonse's confidence, I was ready and willing to die. I felt ashamed that I could welcome the idea of death so easily, and I knew that any of my fellow officers, _especially_ the one I'd just lost would be upset to see me so weak. But I just couldn't help it. There was nothing left...nothing-

"Well spoken!" A very familiar voice echoed through the room, deep and in-control. "I couldn't agree more."

Lust gasped almost at the same time I did, my eyes widening in disbelief. I looked up, despite myself. Alphonse clapped and transmuted a solid, stone wall between the two of us and Lust, blue energy sizzling around it. Lust turned to scowl at Alphonse. Then sudden, startling flames engulfed her. Alphonse jumped behind me and cowered around me, protecting me from the flames on the other side of the stone wall.

The flames ceased and I could hear smoke rising, and Lust gasping.

"Looks like I can get you on your knees, after all," growled Colonel Mustang, and my heart leapt at his voice. I almost wished that Alphonse would let me go so that I could see for myself; was it really, _really_ him? I had to see...

He let loose another shower of fire, and Lust gasped again, in pain. "You should have bled to death by now," she protested.

"I seared the wound closed," Mustang explained, and a few more of my tears fell from wide eyes in relief and wonder. "I came close to passing out from the pain." Then he let more fire fly, pounding mercilessly against the wall, and Lust screamed in anguish. "You told me I couldn't kill you, but I'd like to try to prove you wrong!" Roy said, his old bravado back in his voice as he stopped, then reissued still more fire. "So let's see, how many times is it gonna take?" His voice sounded wild, like my cries had been, and I heard anger in it.

Lust gasped and whimpered, and then screamed again as flames were shot at her yet again. I couldn't stand hearing her scream, even if I'd been going to hear herself a few moments ago, and I wanted so badly to rest my eyes on the Colonel, and I couldn't take it. I struggled against Alphonse's unyielding metal strength. "Colonel! No!" I shouted, attempting futilely to free myself.

The most horrible screams of all were let loose and then silence when the fire was stopped. I could hear the smoke sizzling in the air again.

I was surprised, and almost horrified to hear Lust murmur, "You killed me... I hate losing." I drew in a breath, wiping away my tears as I gave up my struggle against Alphonse. "But there are worse ways to die than at the hands of a man like you." I agreed with her, though I felt a barely existant twinge of something when she said it. "I love how cold and focused your eyes are," Lust crooned huskily. "I look forward...to the days when those eyes will be wide with agony..." I began to panic again, frightened by her words and how sure she sounded. Again, I wished I could see what was going on. "It's coming..." her voice whispered, and it echoed in the large room, "_It's coming, it's coming_!"

I heard the Colonel groan a little, and then fall to the floor. I peeked around the wall, Alphonse finally having released me, and I ran around it to him, calling softly, "Colonel!" Alphonse followed me. I knelt down by his form, with tears still in my eyes, and I nearly melted in relief and exultion when he looked at me.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned, like the idiot he was.

"Forget about me," I said, a bit exasperated. "We need to get you some help."

Mustang turned his head to look at the boy beside me. "Thanks, Alphonse. Thank you for looking after my subordinate."

My breath caught again, just a bit. He was thanking Alphonse for protecting me... Like he'd known I was too weak to take care of myself? Or...like he had been concerned for me, and glad I had been taken care of...?

"Yeah, sure," Alphonse said hurriedly. "We need to call you a doctor!"

"Oh yeah," Roy murmured. "And hurry. Call a doctor for Havoc. Please."

I could have sworn that I heard the sound of metal being sheathed. But I disregarded it, telling myself I was just hearing things, like perhaps Lust retracting or extracting her knife-sharp claws. I began to send Alphonse out to get help and I propped the Colonel's head up with my arm, looking at him worriedly.

His black eyes followed Alphonse as the boy left the room, but when I could no longer hear the metal footsteps, Mustang turned his gaze to me. I stared back at him, but for as well as I knew him and as much as I loved him, I couldn't read the expression in them. I think he prefered it that way. If my emotions hadn't been so over the place tonight, I might have blushed, having him look at me so personally, so intently. But as it was, it was all I could do not to collapse.

I knew then that I wouldn't tell him now how I felt. Maybe I wouldn't _ever_ tell him. But maybe I would. And now I had the chance to tell him another day. Because he was alive, so I could be, too.


End file.
